Following the ruffled feathers and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the news that Skype support for versions of OS X below 10.6 are no longer supported, Microsoft's Skype team has said a new update is coming that'll let Leopard users continue to participate in their online text, voice and video chats. Currently, Mac owners running Leopard can't login to their Skype account thanks to compatibility changes that were made earlier this week.

Those of you that have been using older versions of Skype for Mac until now have recently seen a prompt to upgrade Skype when trying to sign in... There was some confusion on which Skype version is supported on which OS X version. TLDR: Skype will continue to be available on OS X 10.5 - 10.8 and there is no need to upgrade to Mavericks.

Microsoft announced earlier this year that Skype support for older versions of Mac OS X would be coming to an end, and that started happening this week. Mac owners running OS X Leopard found they couldn't login to their accounts and were told to upgrade their Skype app. Unfortunately, the current version requires OS X Mavericks, which left Leopard-running Skype users in the lurch.

Mac owners running OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), OS X 10.7 (Lion), or OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) can download and use Skype 6.15 from the special download page set up just for Mac users. OS X Mavericks users can go to the standard Skype download page to get the most recent version.

OS X 10.5 (Leopard) users will have to wait just a bit before they can get back in on the Skype action. The Skype team said, "We have a Skype version for Mac OS X 10.5 users which will soon be available for download."

There isn't any word yet on just how long Leopard users will have to wait, but at least now we know they will be able to use Skype again at some point.

Encouraging people to be active online with a computer running and un-patched and hence inherently insecurable OS is irresponsible - MS are doing the world, and the digitially naive users still running Leopard, a disservice by enabling their wreckless behaviour. Viruses and malware spread easily because of digital petri dishes like unpatched computers - the people at risk are not just those running the unsecurable machines, but all the rest of us who share the same internet with them.